Network security is an important consideration for computer networks, and particularly for computer networks that connect to the Internet. Network devices, such as routers, firewalls, and network security appliances, can restrict the flow of network traffic using a variety of security techniques, such as packet inspection and filtering.
Commonly, rules for allowing or denying network traffic are managed using access control lists (ACLs). Managing ACLs can be a time consuming process in which rules are manually created and updated. Such manual creation and updating can also lead to network availability problems and/or network security issues. For example, mistakes can be made in the rules when creating or updating ACLs which can result in desired network traffic being denied and/or undesired network traffic being permitted.